


The Yellow House

by Archangel67



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-26
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel67/pseuds/Archangel67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Castiel sends the souls back to Purgatory, Dean decides that it may be time to lay low for a while. He needs a break and Cas needs to learn how to be human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Marathon, Iowa.

It was a shitty little town in the middle of nowhere. The town itself was less than a mile across from one end to the other and the population wasn’t even enough to count as a fire hazard if you put every last one of them into one building. There was a distinct lack of, well, anything. There was a post office, a library, and a bar called Ike’s with its cornflower blue door.  That about summed up the entirety of Marathon, Iowa.

Cas imagined that its desolation was precisely why Dean had chosen it. Well, that and because it was a relatively short drive to get up to Bobby’s place while still being in the middle of nowhere. No matter where they went, the hunter was always drawn back to Sioux Falls. It was easier to just stay close.

After everything they had gone through in the past several months – his stint as God, sending the souls back to Purgatory, his ever dwindling Grace – Castiel was grateful to simply lay low for a time. Dean had said that it was necessary. He called it a lesson in humility.

“You aren’t going to hit the ground running, man. You’re gonna face plant.” Dean had been certain that Cas would continue to make a poor excuse for a human if he didn’t learn a few basics.

How complicated could being human be?

It was surprisingly hard to buy a house when you had no legitimate form of identification . Bobby contacted a friend of a friend who was better at making fake documentation than he was. The guy’s name was Frank and he seemed to be in a constant state of anxiety, but he managed to forge a set of social security cards, birth certificates, passports, and drivers licenses. The only other issue was a distinct lack of money.

After searching for several days, eating at Ike’s and sleeping in the Impala at night instead of wasting money on a motel, they found the perfect place. It was several miles outside of town, standing alone in an unkempt field, far from the main road. The “for sale” sign that was planted into the grass beside the dirt drive that led up to it looked as if it had been there for a long time. The lawn was completely over grown, thick grass pushing up around their knees, spotted with hundreds of dandelions.

“This place is a dump, Cas,” Dean complained as they walked up the path to the house itself, skirting around a deep rut of a pot hole. “It’s falling apart.”

“I like it,” he said quietly as he reached up to touch one of the cracked, wooden shingles that the entire façade of the house was covered in. The pain was pealing, dozens of singles missing, but the building was a strangely cheerful shade of yellow that matched the dandelions in the yard. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s falling apart,” Dean said incredulously. “Do you realize how much work we would have to put into this house?”

“The structure seems sound.”

“So you’re a contractor now, huh?” Dean smiled slightly.

“…The flowers are pleasant.”

“They’re weeds, Cas.”

“I like them,” he replied bluntly. The hunter sighed, but he spread his hands helplessly.

They moved in the next day.

 

*          *          *

 

The house had been for sale for going on seven years. After the former owner had died, his son hadn’t been able to get rid of the place. It was still furnished, although there was much about it which required repair. After seven years, the dead man’s son was simply happy to get rid of the property. The lease was made up in the names of one Mr. John Deacon and one Mr. Brian May.

“Folks aren’t too keen on your sort around here,” the middle aged man had stated jovially. “But I don’t mind queers none. Ain’t got nothin’ to worry about, boys. Just try to keep it to yourselves when you go into town, huh?”

“I…” Dean gaped, color rising in his face, but Cas managed a weak smile.

“We understand. Thank you.”

“Can’t wait to see how you fix the old place up. She’s a wreck. Good luck with that.”

As the seller walked away, they exchanged a look.

The key turned in the lock, but not easily. It stuck and the knob didn’t want to turn at first. After struggling with it for a moment Dean forced the door with his shoulder, grunting under his breath as he stumbled into the dark, dusty house. Cas followed, looking around until he had found the light switch on the wall beside the door. Flicking it on, one bare bulb sputtered to life above their heads.

The seller hadn’t been kidding about the place being in bad shape. Stains of questionable origin colored the rough wood floors, wall paper was slowly curling away from the walls, and the ceiling sagged in some places.

“Either this place has been abandoned for longer than that dude said or his dad really did not give a shit about interior design,” Dean said mostly to himself which made the former angel raise an eye brow.

“Is this what is considered furnished?” Cas asked as he inspected a slightly grimy black and white checkered dinette set.

“Looks like it.” The green eyed man sighed. “What did you talk me into, Cas?”

“It’s a project. You seem to be fond of those.”

“Yeah… okay. Well. I knew this was going to be hard. Didn’t think I’d have to be a baby sitter _and_ a handy man, though.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, unamused.

 

*          *          *

 

That first week, they pulled all of the wall paper down, exposing bare plaster walls. They bought a broom and some sponges and something called multi-surface-cleaner that smelled like fake lemons. Under the layers of dust and dirt and grime, the interior of the house wasn’t actually that unattractive. It was small, but it was more than enough space for the two of them.

Thankfully the problems were only cosmetic in nature. The electricity worked, and so did the plumbing. Despite what Dean said, Cas thought that he had the intricacies of being human down. He knew to eat when he was hungry, to sleep when he was tired, and to shower when it became necessary. There were details that he overlooked, however. By the end of the first week, his perpetual five o’clock shadow had become a serious concern.

Uncertain fingers grazed the edge of his chin at he looked at himself in the chipped bathroom mirror, making a face. He was beginning to look less like an angel of the lord and more like a prophet. Or possibly a hermit. Not that the two were mutually exclusive.

“You need to shave,” Dean said matter-of-factly around the toothbrush in his mouth as he nudged Cas out of the way so that he could spit into the sink. “You’re gonna look like a member of ZZ Top if you don’t take care of that soon.” He turned on the faucet, rinsing out his mouth and putting his toothbrush back into the ceramic coffee cup at the side of the sink for that purpose.

“I… don’t exactly know how,” Castiel admitted ruefully as he stood with one hand on his hip, the other still poised on his jaw. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t sure how to get rid of it. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. He had seen Dean shave, but he hadn’t exactly been taking notes. “What if I do it wrong?”

The hunter smiled lopsided. “The worst you can do is cut yourself. It’s fine. Here, look.”

Taking his razor and a slightly rusted can of shaving cream down from the shelf beside the sink, he turned on the faucet, running the water until it became warm. The pipes, although they were in working order, always rattled when they turned on hot water – Dean said that it must have had something to do with the water heater. Cas had no idea what that meant.

“Just put the shaving cream on where you want to shave and, uh, shave?” Dean shrugged as he handed the razor and the canister to Cas who looked at the rusted can, lost. Apparently it was harder for the man to explain certain things than he had thought it would be. Telling Cas to shave by _shaving_ wasn’t helpful.

At all.

Pursing his lips, Dean put the razor down on the edge of the sink and took the lid off of the canister, shaking it a few times before spraying a small clump of white foam into his hand. Giving the former angel a weary once over, he motioned for him to come closer, positioning Cas between himself and the sink. Green eyes tried to focus on the details on the other man’s face as Dean gingerly applied the shaving cream with his fingertips.

“You’re not going to hurt me, you know,” Cas said evenly.

“…Says the guy who is afraid of shaving,” Dean muttered as smoothed the foam along the plains of Castiel’s cheeks, along his chin, and after a moment’s hesitation, the narrow strip of skin between his nose and lips.

“I’m not afraid of - ” he started to complain.

“Shut up and stand still. If you keep talking, I _will_ cut you.”

Huffing wordlessly, Cas leaned back against the sink, staying as still as he could manage. Dean had taken up the cheap store-bought razor and ran it under the water as he washed the extra foam off of his hands. With water still dripping down from his hands to his elbows, soaking into the rolled up sleeves of his plaid shirt, Dean contemplated Castiel’s face.

“I’ve never done this before so bear with me, okay?” Dean mumbled self-consciously as green eyes flickered up to blue ones before cementing themselves on his jaw. “Taught Sammy how to shave but it was a long time ago and at least he got the general _concept_.”

Cas wanted to say something, but he was taking Dean’s threat to heart.

With a careful, steady hand the hunter began slowly running the razor down along Castiel’s cheek, sloughing away the dark, course hair with short strokes. As close as Dean was, Cas realized he had no idea where to look, so he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. He wanted to say that he had only needed to be shown. That he would be able to pick it up, with practice. That he could do it himself. But Dean actually seemed to be dead set on doing this himself now.

It was a strange sensation, but it didn’t hurt. He couldn’t help but swallow, taking a nervous breath when Dean nudged his chin until he was forced to tilt his head back, exposing his neck and the underside of his jaw. If he hadn’t trusted the hunter, it would have made him incredibly uncomfortable to allow himself to be that vulnerable.

But he did trust Dean. Implicitly.

Lowering his eyes to look at the hunter’s face, he realized that Dean was staring back up at him, chewing thoughtlessly at the edge of his lip. His fingers faltered, the razor skipping across Castiel’s skin as he startled.

“Oh, fuck, sorry,” Dean said suddenly. Before he had even finished the sentiment, Cas could feel a stinging warmth blossoming just beneath his left ear. Lowering the razor and rinsing it under the running water, he put it down on the sink. Castiel’s hand came up automatically to the source of the discomfort, his fingers coming away stained red. Staring at his bloodied fingertips for several seconds, he finally looked up at Dean.

“You _cut_ me.”

“Jeeze, it’s not like I meant to. Did a better job than you would have. Hold still.”

Dean had retrieved a wash cloth, wetting it and gently wiping the trickle of blood away from his neck as Castiel winced, sighing. Something about the former angel’s annoyance made the hunter laughed under his breath.

“I don’t know what you find amusing about me bleeding,” Cas stated sourly.

“It’s not that,” Dean snorted quietly. “You flinched.”

“Did I?” Castiel’s expression shifted, from annoyed to curious, his eye brows raising.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t notice,” Cas said, his gaze sinking down from Dean’s eyes to his mouth.

Running his tongue over suddenly dry lips, Dean became painfully aware of how close together they were standing. Clearing his throat, he ruffled Castiel’s hair with one wet hand and smiled awkwardly as he took one big step back. “Well, you did. Uh… Why don’t you rinse the rest of that crap off of your face. You said you were gonna help me paint today, right?”

Before Cas could manage to say anything, Dean had slung the wash cloth over the towel bar and rushed from the bathroom. Blinking, the former angel wondered whether he was ever going to completely understand the inner workings of the human mind.

**(To be continued, maybe.)**


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s still bleeding,” Castiel stated with a touch of concern.

The blue eyed man had wandered out into the living room after cleaning up in the bathroom, his face now free of the beard which had been threatening to take over. Dean had considered shaving the former angel’s facial hair into some sort of entertaining shape, but he didn’t think he would have been able to ever take Cas seriously again if he had left him with a goatee or an old time super villain mustache.

“Just stick some paper to it,” he said off handedly as he crouched down in the middle of the living room, cracking the top off of the fresh bucket of pain with a screw driver. They had only just managed to get the entirety of the ugly wallpaper torn off the day before. Turning the lid over onto the white sheets that had been draped across the floor, he peered down into the bucket. It was a sort of cornflower blue.

“Paper.” Cas sounded incredulous, voice flat. Dean didn’t even bother to look up as he poured a healthy amount of the paint into the roller pan and dipped the fluffy roller brush into it, coating it thoroughly.

“Toilet paper. Just stick a piece on there, it’ll soak up the blood so you don’t gotta worry about it,” he said as he rose from the ground and started putting paint to plaster.

“Okay.”

When Cas went back into the bathroom, he glanced after the other man and shook his head slightly. All of those little tricks and tips people collected over time but that everybody seemed to just _know_. Angels didn’t seem to have use for those sorts of things which meant that Cas didn’t have that same how-to stashed in his head.

Dean really shouldn’t have been surprised when Cas came out with an entire square of toilet paper stuck to the side of his face, barely clinging yet glued in place by the spot of blood that had come from his imperfect razor skills. It took a moment for him to notice it, only realizing what Cas had done as he reached to put more paint on his roller.

“Jesus, Cas…” He laughed, lowering the roller and leaving it sitting in the pan. “Really?”

“Have I done something wrong?”

It was so damn hard to remember that the angel wasn’t doing this for attention. He wasn’t doing it to be funny, even if it sometimes seemed that way. Castiel just didn’t know, but he tried. Maybe one of these days he’d actually get it. All those tumblers would click into place and he’d learn how to act normal.

…Honestly, though, Dean wasn’t sure if that was something he ever wanted. There were times when he stared for too long or insisted on crowding Dean’s space when it wasn’t necessary to stand that close. He didn’t get a lot of jokes and sarcasm flew completely over his head more often than not. That was just who Cas was. Dean _liked_ that person. A lot. More than he necessarily wanted to admit.

“You, uh… You weren’t supposed to use the entire thing, dude. Just a little piece.”

Taking the square of paper from Castiel’s face, he pulled a scrap of it from the corner and pressed that back onto the red line of the cut, crumpling the rest of it and shoving it into his pocket. Blinking, the other man frowned.

“That makes more sense,” Cas admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Uh-huh. You gonna help me with this or what?”

Nodding, Cas looked to the wall with its splash of pale blue. One dark eye brow slowly quirked into an arch, mouth twisted into a bemused lopsided grimace. “This is the color that you chose?”

Dean sighed. When Cas complained, he did it in the most roundabout ways. He never just out and said that he didn’t like something. It always came down to some sort of passive aggressive bargaining or snide comments. “Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“It’s just. It’s really… blue.”

“You don’t like it. I thought you liked blue. I mean, your tie -”

“You mean Novak’s tie. Blue was Jimmy Novak’s favorite color,” he corrected as he leaned down to take up the detailing brush, dipping it into the paint. Kneeling down beside where Dean stood, he swept the brush along the still-white edge of the wall where the roller had not reached. Concentrating, brow furrowed as he made certain not to accidentally paint the rough wooden floor, he eventually glanced up, mussed bangs obscuring his eyes. “Mine is green.”

The hunter had never really thought about whether Cas had those sorts of preferences. It was idiotic, he realized, to have taken something like that for granted but up until recently it had never come up. Someone who had existed since the dawn of time was bound to have favorites, though. Actually – he felt like a jackass now. Dean had never asked Cas what he would have preferred. Not once.

Choosing this house had been the first decision that Castiel had made that gave away he might have ever wanted anything so specific. He had been adamant about buying this crappy old place, but Dean was glad that he had been. Even a week in, it had really started to grow on him.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Dean said. “We’ll make the living room blue and I’ll use the rest of the blue for my bedroom. We can get green for the kitchen and your room.”

Cas nodded. And smiled.

Quickly turning his attention back to the wall, Dean did his best to avoid acknowledging the awkward sensation of his heart catching in his throat and the tightness in his chest. What the hell was wrong with him?

They had moved out to the middle of nowhere so that they could get away from everything. Take a break. Recover. De-stress. Just two dudes fixing up a house and trying to forget for a little while that they had managed to stop the world from ending. Several times over. That was normal, right? Just… two dudes… living together in a little yellow house that couldn’t be properly described without using the word “quaint”.

What in the world had he been thinking?

No wonder the guy who sold them the house had thought that they were together.

…They weren’t together.

Yeah, maybe he had some feelings that he couldn’t completely explain. He owed Cas his life and so much more than he could even begin to explain. The dumb bastard had pulled him out of Hell, for god’s sake. How were you supposed to rectify that? Cas was just his friend. That was it. Okay, there had been a few times when things had gotten kind of… weird. But things happened, right? Right.

Dean liked girls. Women. Chicks. Babes. Curvy hot long-legged _females_.

Not guys. Not angels. Not Cas.

He did not have a crush on Cas. He didn’t. No. That’s not how this worked.

Shit.

“So your favorite color is green,” the hunter said slowly as he slathered the wall in blue, evening out the streaks and drips before they could start to dry. Meanwhile, Castiel was diligently filling in the spaces with the flat brush. “Wonder what else I don’t know about you.”

“I imagine that what you do not know about me, Dean, could fill a book.”

“Is that supposed to be a Bible joke? Cause I’ve read the Bible.” He paused. “Well, some of it.”

“Most definitely not,” Cas assured him with a quiet snort of a laugh. “We were not portrayed very well within that book. I do not much care for it.”

It was odd to hear Castiel still referring to himself as part of the celestial family. Then again, Cas was never going to be fully human, not while he still had even a portion of his Grace intact. Maybe that meant that Castiel still wouldn’t age or die. His Grace had been depleted like a battery, not ripped out in the way that Anna had done when she became mortal. That was the difference. This oblivious asshole was going to outlive him by decades. Centuries, even.

What a strange thought.

“You got any other favorites?” Dean asked to keep his mind from sinking into the sort of unnecessarily negative thoughts that they always rushed back to when he wasn’t careful. “Favorite food?”

Cas was biting on the tip of his tongue as he put all of his attention into his painting. “I admit, Jimmy’s fondness for hamburgers seems to have rubbed off on me. Although I liked that thing that you made me try at the restaurant the other night.”

“Peach cobbler.”

“Yes, that. It was… pleasant.”

“Maybe next time you’ll get real adventurous and try that strawberry rhubarb pie the waitress was raving about,” Dean chuckled.

“Rhubarb is poisonous,” Cas said with a frown. “I would not wish to make myself ill.”

“…You don’t cook the poison part, Cas. Who the hell would serve a poison pie?”

“In Japan they eat a poisonous fish which if butchered incorrectly, which it often is, kills you almost instantly.” The hunter slowly looked down at Castiel who felt his stare and looked back up to him, paint brush hovering over the paint can. “What?”

“That’s weird, man.”

“I thought so, yes. It’s called fugu. I read it in a book that Bobby gave me.”

“Of course you did. You need a hobby.”

“Reading is a hobby, isn’t it?” Cas looked worried again as if he was messing up being human. Lowering his roller, the green eyed man put a hand on the former angel’s shoulder even as Castiel continued dragging the brush against the wall.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Just… don’t believe everything you read.”

“I am… highly skeptical of… most things,” Cas stated haltingly as he shifted beneath Dean’s hand. “I am also skeptical of my ability to paint properly with your hand on my shoulder.”

Grimacing, Dean jerked his hand back and moved a few steps away to the right, giving the other man some space as he moved his roller further down the wall.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Cas said. “I don’t mind. I just don’t wish to ruin the floor.”

“Right.” Dean smiled lopsidedly. “The roof is caving in, the shingles are falling off, but we wouldn’t want to get paint on the floor.”

“That’s what I said,” Cas said, blinking in confusion.

God help him, what had Dean gotten himself into?


End file.
